Failure factories

On Dec. 18, 2007, the Pinellas County School Board abandoned integration. They justified the vote with bold promises: Schools in poor, black neighborhoods would get more money, more staff, more resources. They delivered none of that.

This is the story of how district leaders turned five once-average schools into Failure Factories.

Officials announce stepped-up efforts Aug. 17, 2015

Times education reporters Cara Fitzpatrick and Lisa Gartner, investigative reporter Michael LaForgia and photographer Dirk Shadd spent a year tracing how Pinellas County School District leaders have neglected their neediest schools. The articles were written while LaForgia was participating in the National Health Journalism Fellowship, a program of the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Journalism.